Christians: I am generalizing to get this off my mind

[godnotgod]

A lot of Christians are often rather aggressive when proselytizing. I've even had people interrupt my dinner at a restaurant...

My friend and I were once sitting in the Barnes & Noble coffee shop discussing Zen, when a Christian fundie acquaintance joins us. Not liking the topic, he gets up, goes to his car, and returns with a Bible, whereupon he begins to recite passages out loud from it in an attempt to drown out our discussion. I have seen this same nut job go into restaurants (in Calif) and approach guests he did not know who were smoking, shouting: "In the name of Jesus, I hereby drive the Smoking Demon from you!".

This same fundie was once discussing a certain 'Mary' with another fundie, whom they both considered to be a 'lukewarm' Christian, and what to do about her. Listening in on the conversation between them from time to time, it finally ended with both of them wholeheartedly agreeing that Mary and others of her 'ilk' should be lined up against a wall and machine-gunned to death, at which they high-fived each other and in joyful celebration, ordered double cheeseburgers, shakes, and fries as their reward for doing Jesus's work.

 

[godnotgod]

More tidbits which point to the Christian story as myth:

Nowhere in the Old Testament, nor in any ancient historical account, do we find any mention of a 'town of Nazareth', the alleged town where Jesus is supposed to have lived from approximately the age of 12 until 30 years of age.

...when we look for historical confirmation of this hometown of a god – surprise, surprise! –no other source confirms that the place even existed in the 1st century AD.

• Nazareth is not mentioned even once in the entire Old Testament. The Book of Joshua(19.10,16) – in what it claims is the process of settlement by the tribe of Zebulon in the area – records twelve towns and six villages and yet omits any 'Nazareth' from its list.

• The Talmud, although it names 63 Galilean towns, knows nothing of Nazareth, nor does early rabbinic literature.

•St Paul knows nothing of 'Nazareth'. Rabbi Solly's epistles (real and fake) mention Jesus 221 times, Nazareth not at all.

• No ancient historian or geographer mentions Nazareth. It is first noted at the beginning of the 4th century.

In his histories, Josephus has a lot to say about Galilee (an area of barely 900 square miles). During the first Jewish war, in the 60s AD, Josephus led a military campaign back and forth across the tiny province. Josephus mentions 45 cities and villages of Galilee – yet Nazareth not at all.

Josephus does, however, have something to say about Japha (Yafa, Japhia), a village just one mile to the southwest of Nazareth where he himself lived for a time.


Itinerarium Burdigalense– the Itinerary of the Anonymous Pilgrim of Bordeaux– is the earliest description left by a pious tourist. It is dated to 333 AD. The itinerary is a Roman-style list of towns and distances with the occasional comment.

As the pilgrim passes Jezreel (Stradela) he mentions King AhabandGoliath. At Aser (Teyasir) he mentions Job. At Neopolis his reference is to Mount Gerizim, Abraham,Joseph, and Jacob's well at Sichar (where JC 'asked water of a Samaritan woman'). He passes the village of Bethel (Beitin) and mentions Jacob's wrestling match with God, and Jeroboam. He moves on to Jerusalem.

Our pilgrim – preoccupied with Old rather than New Testament stories – makes no single reference to 'Nazareth.'

4th Century Roman Map –and NO NAZARETH!

In the section shown here, below the city of Aelia Capitolina (centre left), the map shows one site which had by this stage entered the Christian dreamscape – theMount of Olives(red). The cartographer of this unique record named more than 3000 places. And guess what? – he does not mention Nazareth!

- See more at: http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/nazareth.html#sthash.xK1Rw5QE.dpuf

 

[godnotgod]

Yeshu was a Nazarene, a member of a sect of the Essenes. This group lived in the family monastery at Mt. Carmel, just 10 miles outside of present day Nazareth. During that time, there were thousands of devotees who lived in tents at the foot of Mt. Carmel, as houses were not allowed to be built on the mountain. It was this 'tent-city' which was most likely referred to as 'Nazareth' by the NT gospel writers, since no historical nor archaeological evidence exists for a 1st century 'town of Nazareth'. In addition, Yeshu is often portrayed as a carpenter, but there is no record of his work, his clients, nor of any income derived from that occupation. Instead, it would make far more sense that he contributed his carpentry skills to the family monastery atop Mt. Carmel, where the Essenes claim he lived and taught, along with Mary and Joseph. That he dwelt at Mt. Carmel would also partly explain is 13 'missing years', of which the Christian community says not a word. This monastery of the Nazorean Essenes was in contact with the Therapeutae Essenes of Greece and Egypt, which had connnections to the Theravada Buddhists in India via King Asoka, who had sent the Theravada monks to establish monasteries there. The Theravada and the Therapeutae are healers. Yeshu was a healer, and it was most likely from these monks that he learned some of his healing skills. From this point, there is much talk and circumstantial evidence of Yeshu having travelled East during some of those missing 13 years; through Persia, China, Tibet, and India. The Buddhist monks at the Hemis Monastery of Ladakh in the Himalayas referred to him as 'our beloved Isha', 'Isha' meaning 'savior'. These monks claim to be in possession of scrolls recording the life of Yeshu, and made famous by the Russian traveller and writer Nicolas Notovich.

http://www.jammu.com/ladakh/articles/hemis-and-jesus.htm

 

[godnotgod]

"Yeshua (or Yahushua) bar Yosef (Yeshua, son of Joseph) is the original Aramaic name for Jesus the Nazarene. His parents, siblings, disciples, and followers called him by that name. The name "Jesus" is a misspelling and mispronunciation that resulted from the translation of Yeshua's name after his death, first into the Greek Iesous (pronounced "ee-ay-SUS"), and then from the Greek Iesous into the Latin Iesus. The Latin Iesus ("ee-ay-SUS") wasn't pronounced as "Jesus" with a "J" because the letter "j" didn't come into the English language until the middle of the seventeenth century. The King James Bible, written at the beginning of the seventeenth century, has the name Iesous ("ee-ay-sus"), with no "j." So even in English, no one spoke the name "Jesus" until sometime after the middle of the seventeenth century."

http://30ce.com/

Yeshu (ישו in the Hebrew alphabet) is the name of an individual or individuals mentioned in Rabbinic literature. Modern scholarship generally considers the name Yeshu in the Talmud to be a reference to Jesus in the Talmud.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshu